Witt's End

God or prophet tells  people to do a thing. People do not do thing. God or prophet calls people to repentance. It's a common pattern throughout the Christian spiritual canons. It's a common refrain and story.  But that isn't all of it. There's plenty of other stuff in there too.  Not an insignificant portion of the canon of scripture I grew up with is also telling prophets to not do dumb sh** or fix the dumb sh** they did. Them specifically. Not the people. It's in the Old Testament with Jonah, countless times with the apostles in The New Testament, and throughout the Book of Mormon, and even major sections of the Doctrine & Covenants.  I bring this up for a reason. One of the foundations of my faith was the fact that change is always possible. That it's hopefully inevitable. Part of that faith was focused by the belief that the heavens weren't closed. That there was always communication. And it goes through prophets, right? When we look at that propheti...

 Dear God, What are we going to do? I fret. I worry. I toss and turn. I can't lose the sleep that I'm not having. It's a forgone conclusion.  So I'm just talking. Without thinking. Letting these thoughts race.  There are too many suffering. Too many worrying. So much more than me. I have been given much alongside my trials, my tribulations, my sorrows. I can't ever lose sight of that. But tonight. These days. I struggle to go to work without shaking. I struggle to concentrate. And I don't think I'm alone.  I may be considered a snowflake for this. A bleeding heart. That's just who I am. I care.  I know these prayers are usually private. That's the way I was raised. And in my streams of consciousness that's usually how it goes. But right not my heart is breaking. And words on a page makes the most sense to me. Is cathartic. Necessary for me. What can I do? Other than shouting in the void. Other than the limited work I keep doing day after day.  It...

Have we examined how problematic it is when we equate good health with righteousness? I want us to think about that for a moment. When we think about having faith to be healed, and the blessings of heaven, how do we react to chronic illness and permanent disability? Do we expect that there is a personal responsibility of the person who we describe as afflicted? Sit with that for a second.  We often start with language we often equate to sin and Satan. Now we don't always stay there. I would argue most don't. But the direction that our sympathies go isn't always healthy. Our attempts at empathy often past sympathy and wind up somewhere around pity. That effects how we interact with people. With those struggling or thriving with various illnesses, medical conditions, and disabilities being treated as near helpless. Earnest sentiments are expressed that are often harmful. We seem to divide people into the useful and the helpless when we do this. And whether we are super consci...

“  You can’t call yourself a man of peace unless you’re capable of great violence. Otherwise you’re harmless.” I’ve seen countless variations of this theme. And I’ve come to realize in the modern era those words carry less weight. The physical threshold of who can commit great bodily harm to people has not been lower.  Extreme amounts of violence can caused by properly placed fertilizer and a detonator. A keystroke can shutdown massive infrastructure, All you need is a the ability to hold and aim a firearm with a working trigger finger to kill someone. It’s a far cry from the decades of training and conditioning it used to take to be a warrior. I mean it’s why armies transitioned to firearms. It made it easier to conscript more into service with shorter periods of training. Now I don’t say this to diminish what happens when someone truly trains to operate as a professional warfighter in today’s battlefield. The lowered threshold to entry makes those who properly train that muc...

I had a realization today. Someone talked about how in youth they could do anything and fall asleep, wake up and not hurt the next day. Everyone agreed. I haven’t really been able to sleep since by teens. And at least half my mornings have hurt since I was 8 years old.  I guess that’s not normal. Not typical.  You're not meant to exist in pain without trauma or disease. So that means if you're existing with pain you're existing with trauma or disease.  I think sometimes those of us that are dealing with these chronic issues lose sight of that. We get so used to the fatigue, the discomfort, the grin and bear it we don't realize how abnormal that can be.  So to those of you struggling, you're seen. I mean it. And we need to realize sometimes that we're not normal. 

"Change your thoughts, change everything." I keep seeing variations of this quote or idea all over. And it's not horrible. But it's not universally beneficial either.  I don’t disagree with the idea that our thoughts can be the difference. That they can set moods. That they can make the difference in outcomes, mental, emotional, and physical. Thoughts matter. We have to learn how to control them. Develop them. Use them. It’s a more than worthwhile endeavor. It’s just not an equal one. All people have different struggles. Different trials with this.  Uncontrolled moods, intrusive thoughts, physical addictions, traumatic events, neurodivergent struggles, and even brain damage. They all wreak havoc on one’s cognition. Purposeful thought isn’t as easy for some as it is for others. The amount of effort required is different.  At one point in my life, I'd convinced myself I still had pain. There was racing anxiety that accompanied my every move. The line between physica...

You ever wake up in an irrational blind panic? Like heart racing? Head flag but brain shaking like an earthquake? And you can’t remember what nightmare triggered it? I always have the same nightmares. It could be one of three. If I wanted to take the effort to identify my emotions and process them I’d know which one it was. But I have things to do this morning. Deeper processes that give more healing are not always available to us. Sometimes it’s only symptom management and that’s ok.  We don’t always have an easy cure. That’s for sure. Sometimes we have to do work. Now that work varies and can include lot of therapy, mindfulness, short term medication, long term medication, prophylactics, and rescue meds. Those are the big guns. And financially or time-wise they aren’t always available. Even a lack of providers can cause that. Some people find other ways. The simple feed it, hydrate it, give it fresh air comes to mind. Or sleep.  Sometimes coping takes another turn. We get ob...

 If abuse can be prevented and isn't, that's a tragedy. Period. I worry that is what has been lost in some of the conversation surrounding clerical privilege, reporting, hotlines, abuse, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Now I'm not writing here to go into details of this specific issue. I'm not here to look around at other similar situations like Spotlight, Camp Kanakuk or others. I'm not here to talk about the military abuse. No I'm here to talk about something different. The various responses to abuse and trauma. And how it's been lost. There are two main reactions I keep seeing two main reactions to this. One that the church did nothing wrong and just followed their legal obligations and this set of revelations is an attack against it. Or the opposite response, that the church is only about self preservation of the institution, all else be damned. Both are not talking about victims of abuse. And how to help them.  See when someone exp...

I was one of the little kids growing up. That can be hard to believe given my 5'11" frame that has only been below 200lbs for a brief period in the last decade. But it's the hand over heart truth. I was little. 5'0" part way through freshman year little. Fit in the locker all of middle school, was consistently short in elementary school little.  I was also a nerd. Super nerd. With a 90s bowl cut. I loved to watch Star Wars,  Wishbone, most cartoons. I read Animorphs, comics, and the World Book Encyclopedia, all the time. I was obsessed with animals and sci-fi (and eventually fantasy, yay Redwall and Tolkien). I averaged over 100k new pages of new material in the summer.  All of the above was true, as was a love of sports. A big love. A love that I didn't feel that I could deliver on.  See I was often picked next to last or last. And it wasn't for a lack of trying. If you're literally on the little dudes, and you get pegged or slammed, you're down. ...

"Pain is the patient's problem." I can't tell you how many times that mantra has passed through my brain over the years. Whether it was gaining IV access, inserting a silver bullet for a temp in some poor soul, palpating, or even splinting, treatment hurts.  That's one thing they don't tell you. Pain is necessary for healing. Whether its a surgery. Where you need to literally cut into a patient then cutaway what's harming you. Pierce tissue to stitch things back together. If you slip a joint out of socket and dislocate it, you have to reduce it. Trust me that hurts. Intubation can be traumatic. Resetting broken limbs. Heck just a blood draw or a simple shot, that's a needle piercing skin and possible veins.  It all takes pain. It's uncomfortable. That's what healing takes. The price that's required.  To facilitate those actions, medical personnel often have to cause pain. We have to make people hurt to heal them, or to reduce harm. That...

Sometimes it's doubt. That's an emotion that can creep in at anytime. It can sneak up on you. Doesn't matter how good you're doing. Sometimes things will hit you the hardest when things are going well. That's just the absolute truth. I've been thinking a lot about that lately. The 2018 numbers came out for DOD suicides. A lot of posts have followed breaking down the numbers, the reasons why, the proposed actions. I'm not going into that. Enough people have for now and there's not much more for me to add. There's been a theme running through those that I can't shake. Check on your buddies, even when you think they're doing alright. I've failed at that a lot. I get wrapped up in my life, my work, my school, my family. I don't reach out like I should. I even know which guys hurt at times. I can see it. Sometimes I get a text or a message off, sometimes I don't. But I should. I should make more of an effort. You know why I know th...